For Quinner 2birds and Those Concerned About Student Writing

[Phabos]

CNN.com has this article on student writing abilities, instruction, and lack of each. I thought it was an interesting article and goes along with things Quinner and others have complained about in various threads. Just though I would pass it along.

The article can be found Here.

Phabos Aphsion
Drunken Paladin Of Brell
A bird in the hand is worth two in the name...
I Write Better Sober
Tarew Marr

[Lilosh]

SWEEET!


The SAT is adding an essay section two years from now.

Score one for college literacy (One would hope).


-Lilosh

[Quinner Sparrowhawk]

Um, first I could make several rude remarks about things in hands and birds but thought the better of it.

This problem has been in the making for awhile. Several things have contributed.

1. Class sizes are out of control. Teachers have less time for planning and grading and more students to teach. Average (And I mean average!) total student load for an English Teacher is 150 students. If each student writes an essay and the teacher takes 5 minutes to grade each one, that equals 750 minutes or 12.5 hours. Teachers only get 5 hours of in school planning per week. Grading essays while on paid time could take 2.5 weeks, without considering the time to do administrative paperwork, write lesson plans, grade other assignments, and such.

2. There is an too much of an emphasis on standardized tests. Administrators and State officials are more concerned with high scores (Which mean diddly squat in the real world) than they are with having students be able to write expressively. Students are taught formulaic writing styles that meet the needs of the test but don't help beyond it. I could go off more on this, suffice to say I find standardized tests pointless. We teach them how to do well on the test that is supposed to check if we are teaching them. :?: There is some scientific experimental rule being broken there but I'm not sure what.

3. Children have weaker imaginative skills. A college professor did a study and found that his current students were more likely to write stories like sitcom episodes than students from 20 years prior who wrote more about personal experiences. With the console games, Babysitter Captain Video and his sidekick Sitcom Sally, and all those realistic toys, most children are not engaging in imaginative activities. (Check outside right now and count how many kids are playing out there much less playing pretend :shock: )

4. Television has become all about the ratings and not about the writing. Pop media has very little that is creative to serve as inspiration. Just look at the most recent batch of Hollywood icons, you might need a magnifying glass to find their talent. How many remakes were released this year as compared to original scripts?

5. Teaching salaries are noncompetitive and working conditions are poor. The best and brightest often leave teaching for better paying jobs with less stress. Why get paid like snot and treated worse by students, parents, school administrators, government officials, and the media? (Please come teach our children and let us abuse you!) There is little incentive to be a teacher in America. Everything that goes wrong in the education of a child is pinned on the teacher. The total lack of any educational preparation during the first 6 years of the child's life and when not in school has nothing to do with it?

6. Since schooling is an entitlement in America, students expect to be educated without having to participate in the process. I could go off even more on this subject but it would take several days to read the post.

Basically, everyone wants to go to the party but nobody wants to pay. To get American school children to be better writers would take being serious about education. I would almost rather have smaller classes AND fewer students than to get a raise. As it stands, I am taking A+, Cisco, and other computer classes to get out of teaching.

[Phabos]

As the son of a math teacher and the nephew of an English Teacher, I tend to agree with everything you have said.

I would also like to add that too often, parents don't encourage their children to read. Reading books on a regular basis builds vocabulary and tells children that words are fun. I still read for fun whenever I have the opportunity (not much anymore, but I try).

May God bless you Quinner and all the others charged with teaching the youth of America, even if it is against their wishes.

Phabos

[Inyidd]

I could spend hours ranting on this subject, but in the interest of not being banned (/wave Denmom), I'll refrain.

Suffice it to say, I feel your pain.

--Inyidd

[Lothay]

Surprising personal fact; Despite having been a computer programmer for years, and being a lousy typist, Lothay used to be a teacher.

Yes, that's right. A teacher. And not just any kind of teacher. I did "educational rehab" work. I taught people who somehow got high school diplomas without learning anything to read. And do basic math.

I taught people study skills, and did it for years. I taught for a school that was NOT part of the school system, and required payment from the students.

Surprisingly, no one wanted to pay for the skills they desired. And I got out because I was sick of starving to death.

I feel your pain.

~Lothay

[Farnyr]

My uncle is an english teacher, and i've heard some horror stories. Now granted, he teaches in Los Angeles, one of the largest(if not largest) school systems in the country, its still not right. His students cant form whole sentances, and one child out of i'd gather 200(not sure his class load) knew what a synonym was.

Its not right. We are cheating our children and ourselves out of a future. We are more concerned on the here and now, and instead should be looking at 20 years from now, when we wont have any control and our children will be running everything. Ok, im going to stop my mini rant now, before it turns into a long rant, lol.

P.S. I find it humorous that im using spell check on this thread, after ranting about schooling.

[Varlik]

I feel your pain too for teaching. I sometimes have to educate the people under me on how to do the job. I'm military and the people have gone to school on how to perform their duties. Problem is, we're working with stuff they no longer teach and the people I'm teaching don't want to learn on the "dinosaurs" that we have.

I was luck in school, although I didn't do homework and failed a lot of classes (summer school 3 summer running and out of my own pocket) I actually learned a lot from them. I still keep in touch with those that had an effect on my life and to the amazement to my English teacher (was failing and passing SATs with college scores) I still love to read and write.

I guess I should add that come June it will be 20 yrs since I graduated, so that may be part of the reason. Teachers had more power (disciplining), less students, and usually enjoyed teaching. I'm suere there are still teachers that enjoy teaching, but with everything happening it's hard to think they enjoy it as much.

/salute the teachers that are still plugging away trying to teach.

[Minta Rose]

After seeing the results of my class's SAT II writing portions and knowing what drudges the highly graded essays were, blurred with apathy and painful to read, I doubt that an essay score on the SAT I will indicate anything.

Anything else is too venomous to post.

[Doomspark Deathfire]

My father taught Freshman Comp at the University of Kentucky for many years. I grew up reading Chaucer and Shakespeare and listening to some of the stories he told about his students.

One year, the Powers That Be put the entire starting line of the football team into Dad's class. I assume that most of them had put off the Freshman Comp requirement until they HAD to take it. These kids would not do homework or assignments and were generally disruptive. My Dad flunked them.

The Dean of the English Department called my Dad and put all kinds of pressure on him to change their grades. My Dad refused. Kentucky went 0-10-1 in football that year. Till the day he died, he swore that if he hadn't been tenured, he would've been fired.

...

The idea that student-athletes are special doesn't start in college. It starts in High School - earlier, even.

Bah, I've sidetracked myself.

The ability of "Joe Public" to write proper English has declined drastically. A few months ago, my company put out a new newsletter for internal employees only. I read it, and was appalled to notice dozens of errors in spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Misuse of "to" and "too", "your" and "you're", and "there", "their", and "they're" abounded.

The editor of this periodical has an advanced degree and isn't particularly stupid. But he can't write, and doesn't care to learn. I offered to proofread the next issue for him (citing some of the above examples), and was told in no uncertain terms to butt out - the purpose of this newsletter is to put out information to employees, not to win prizes for Journalism.

With that kind of attitude, it's no wonder Johnny can't write a proper sentence!

[Idara]

Oh, my gosh you hit one of my hot buttons. My sister is a teacher, my aunt is a teacher, and my cousin is a teacher. They get paid like crap and put up with things that most people would sue a company over if they had to endure in another workplace. My sister, who is a high school teacher, essentially works seven days a week, 10 hours a day. She puts up with bratty kids, parents who are even more immature, and an administration that only cares about the bottom line - high standardized test scores.

I'm currently working in a law firm, my newest job since being laid off from my medical transcription job. I can hardly believe the spelling and sentence structure some of the people in this firm use. And these are the case managers, paralegals, and in some cases even the lawyers themselves. "I told the client we was doing the best we could." "The client said it was to much troubel to get the police report and we should get it." The horror goes on and on. And these are *professional* people. /sigh

[Aandaie]

It happens because teachers pass them. If you turn in a paper using "your", in place of "you're", you should get an F. You'd no longer do that. Instead they probably take off one point for something like that, only the first time you do it.

I would not say I'm the best at spelling or grammar, but I'd say that I'm "message board adequate." If you go over to the main Everquest site newbie board, you'll see some posts that make you shrink in terror. The amazing thing is that I don't think English is the second language for the people who are the most guilty of butchering it.